


if ever you should die, I know I'll shave my head

by RainbowRandomness



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Dylan's got a buzzcut again and this idea sprung to mind, Jodie loves the idea of Derek helping Stiles shave his hair so ta-da, M/M, buzzcut!Stiles, set after 3b, the after effects of the nogitsune
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-04
Updated: 2014-06-04
Packaged: 2018-02-03 08:15:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,769
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1737641
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RainbowRandomness/pseuds/RainbowRandomness
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Twitter blew up the other day with a recent picture of Dylan with his buzzcut  and my friend Jodie loves the idea of Derek helping Stiles shave his hair and so this beauty was born.</p><p>This fic wasn't meant to be as long as it is but it really flowed out of me and onto my Word document so I hope you all enjoy it.</p><p>Title from 'Bitter End' by Blind Pilot.</p>
    </blockquote>





	if ever you should die, I know I'll shave my head

**Author's Note:**

> Twitter blew up the other day with a recent picture of Dylan with his buzzcut and my friend Jodie loves the idea of Derek helping Stiles shave his hair and so this beauty was born.
> 
> This fic wasn't meant to be as long as it is but it really flowed out of me and onto my Word document so I hope you all enjoy it.
> 
> Title from 'Bitter End' by Blind Pilot.

It’s hard after the Nogitsune. So many are dead, and by the hands of Stiles none the less, although everyone assures him that’s not true, that it wasn’t him, how could he think that?

He nods as if he believes them, pretends to be fine with the fact that he knows he’s a murderer, tries not to keep eye contact with all of his friends in fear of seeing the sadness in their eyes that are mirrored in his own. He feels fragile, like thin glass that could shatter at any moment by the slightest hint of touch, feels cold and empty like the burnt out shell of Derek’s childhood home that is nothing but dust and ash and the lingering screams of the dead.

Yes, he feels fragile, broken really, hollow, and when he wakes from the night screaming from nightmares he can’t even remember, he tries his best to muffle his screams and broken sobs into his pillow. His dad has enough to worry about as it is without Stiles waking him in the night repeatedly to calm him down and stop him from hurting himself.

As if the nightmares weren’t bad enough, sometimes he still has hallucinations during the day. He’ll be sitting in Coach’s Econ class, listening to the man go on about something Stiles isn’t listening to and suddenly Stiles will notice that everyone is staring at him, lifeless eyes fixed on him. He’ll look down at his notebook where he’s been writing nonsense, words written so many times they have overlapped each other to create a large black indent of nothing into the paper. Stiles will bring up his shaking hands and begin to count his fingers, one, two, three, four, five, both hands, ten total, and then Coach is shouting at him to pay attention and no one is looking at him because nobody cares about the broken boy sitting in their classroom.

Sometimes he looks down and he sees blood on his hands, dripping from his fingers and drying beneath his fingernails, endless amounts of fresh blood covering him and causing his hands to shake. He’ll dig his fingernails into the palms of his hands, close his eyes and hope that when he opens them, the blood will be gone.

Sometimes it is. Sometimes it isn’t.

He doesn’t know what to do when the blood doesn’t disappear. He feels like he’s painting the school corridors with the blood of an unknown innocent, the crimson liquid dripping onto the floor as he walks amongst the crowds of students. He’ll watch as someone walks onto the bloody droplets, stare as their shoes leave bloody footprints on the lino floor. He’ll run to the nearest bathroom or the nearest empty classroom, pushing at students and leaving bloody handprints on their shoulders, their arms, so much blood, and he’ll crash into the room and try to remember how to breathe. Breathe in and count to seven, slowly, deeply, calm down, breathe out and count to eleven, slow down, calm down, again, breathe, count, _calm down_.

The thing that finally makes him crack is when he wakes up from a nightmare one night, his screams muffled into his pillow as his voice becomes hoarse, his throat raw and his sobs racking through him and making him shake uncontrollably. Once he’s calmed himself down enough and is able to breathe again, he hauls himself up from his bed, ditches his sweat soaked shirt and pads his way into the bathroom across the hall.

He turns on the light, lets it flicker to life as he shuffles over and turns the taps on, letting the cold water flow before he cups it into his hands, washing away the blood he knows isn’t really there. He splashes the cold water on his face, trying to cool himself down, trying to wash away the nightmare that haunted him but could never remember the details of. He splashes his face once, twice, before turning the taps off and gripping the sink, looking up to see his face in the mirror.

His face is dripping, water sliding along his cheeks and following the path of his faded tear tracks and as he stares at himself he notices how hollow his face looks, his cheekbones still too sharp, his eyes too sunken and bruised beneath, his lips chapped and his skin pale. His eyes flicker up to his hair, long and wild and slightly wet from where his fingers reached into his hair while washing his face.

Reaching up, he buries his fingers into his hair and tugs, gently at first until it’s not and it’s almost like he’s trying to rip the strands from his scalp. He’s got both hands buried into his hair, both tugging and pulling as if he can rip away the memories of being possessed by something evil, as if he can rip away every single memory of everything bad that has happened since Scott got bit in the woods that night so long ago. Maybe if he forgets it all, he can go back to being Stiles, the smartass with ADHD that won’t shut up and can’t stay away from police investigations, who bench warms every lacrosse game and loves eating curly fries.

He tugs again and then looks up, staring at himself in the mirror. He gives another tug and then he knows what he has to do, how he can fix it.

He remembers reading somewhere that when something dramatic happens in someone’s life, they will cut their hair as a sign of a fresh start. Those with long hair will cut it short to feel as if a weight has been lifted off their shoulders, as if they have been reborn anew and everything before that troubled them was forgotten in the past and was no longer an issue.

Stiles thinks back to his life before Scott was bitten, before his life was filled with werewolves and kanima’s, darach’s and evil trees, kitsunes and nogitsunes. He thinks back to when he was just Stiles, the kid no one paid any attention to except for to roll their eyes at when his Adderall ran low and he twitched and mumbled in class. He used to be the loser who got shoved in the corridors by the likes of Jackson and his idiot cronies, used to be the kid who had an asthmatic best friend, two losers together just trying to get through high school. He used to be the kid who had no idea that anything supernatural existed in the world.

Used to. He was all too familiar with the supernatural now.

Rooting around in the bathroom cupboards, he searched for the hair shaver that hadn’t been touched in so long. He found it buried at the back, a light coating of dust layered over it and he dragged it out from behind all the products and medicines and blew the dust from its smooth exterior. He turned it over in his hands before reaching down for the cord to plug it into the plug on the wall.

He had only just turned it on, the buzz of the razor filling the quiet of the room, when he heard a knock from the bathroom door. He looked over at it in confusion; his father was working another night shift, something he did not do lightly when he knew Stiles still occasionally (nightly) had nightmares.

When he was about to call out to ask who it was, the door slowly opened and Derek stepped into the room, shutting the door softly behind himself. Stiles stared at him in confusion, the razor still held in his raised hand and buzzing softly in the silence. Why was Derek here? How long had he been standing outside the door?

Stiles was about to ask him these very questions but Derek stepped forward, almost cautiously, and took the razor from his hand. He closed the toilet seat and gently pushed Stiles until he was sat down upon it, his hand resting lightly on his shoulder before he let it glide along his warm skin, up along his neck and round until he was cupping the back of Stiles’ head.

Derek raised the hair shaver and slid it across the top of Stiles’ head, the buzzing muffled as it began to cut through his tuffs of hair.

They worked in silence as Derek cradled Stiles’ head and worked at cutting away his long hair and Stiles watched as it fell around him, feeling as though he could forget everything that had happened to him each time more hair fell away and coated the floor. The gentle buzzing and cool glide of the razor against his scale made Stiles close his eyes for a moment, remembering the last time he had cut his hair. After he had hit Jackson with his Jeep and the summer began, the thought of cutting his hair and slipped his mind, especially when Derek had allowed him to help and work with him on tracking down Boyd and Erica.

He shuddered at the memory, knowing now that both werewolves were dead, as were many others. He pushed the thought away and opened his eyes to Derek watching him, the razor quiet and Derek’s hand still warm where it cradled the back of his head.

They stared at each other for a while, both not wanting to break the calm silence that had formed between them. After a while though, Derek placed the razor on the counter by the sink and knelt down in front of Stiles, his hand still cradling the back of his head, thumb stroking lightly through the freshly shaven hair.

Stiles watched him as Derek raised his other hand to cup his cheek, thumb stroking at the flushed skin before he leaned forward and kissed him.

The kiss was warm, a press of lips against lips that felt like a comfort and a promise, a promise of what though, Stiles was unsure of. The kiss lasted what felt like an eternity, the warm pressure of Derek’s lips and the faint scratch of his stubble tickling Stiles’ chin, before Derek broke away, resting their foreheads together and breathing out a quite sigh of content. Derek slid the hand that was resting against Stiles’ cheek down his arm until he reached his trembling hands that were clutching at the front material of Derek’s shirt.

Derek rested his hand atop Stiles’ and began to murmur soothing words, his thumb absentmindedly stroking the back of his shaven head as Stiles let the tears run freely down his cheeks.

**Author's Note:**

> Not sure if I like the ending or not. Leave me a comment and let me know what you think, any comments/kudos would be greatly appreciated.
> 
> You can find me on twitter at @RainbowRandoms and on tumblr at Rainbow-Randomness.tumblr.com


End file.
